Expectations of and satisfaction with the South African Police Service in the Rustenburg area / Ebenhaezer Kleyn

Abstract:

Little quantitative research has been published on expectations of and satisfaction with the
South African Police Service (SAPS) from the perspective of both the public and the police.
Furthermore, scientific information is also needed about how police members perceive their
own jobs and services to their clients, namely the public. Therefore, the objectives of this
study were to determine the expectations and satisfaction of the community and the police as
well as the congruence between the community's expectations and the police's perceptions
regarding policing in the Rustenburg area of the North West Province. A further objective
was to determine if there were any differences between Afrikaans-, English- and Tswana-speaking
members of the community. The relationship between job satisfaction, stress,
burnout and engagement of police members was also investigated.
A qualitative design (interviews and focus groups) was used to identify items that could be
used in the questionnaires. Furthermore, a cross-sectional design was used to describe the
information collected at that time. Stratified random samples of both the police (N=101) and
the community (N-418) were taken in the Rustenburg area of the North West Province. The
following measuring instruments were included in this study: for both the community and the
police the Public Attitude Survey was used and for police only the Minnesota Satisfaction
Survey, the Police Stress Survey, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey and the
Utrecht Work Engagement Scale.
A comparison between the present and preferred priorities of both the public and the police
shows that both are of the opinion that the overall service of the SAPS should improve.
Although it seems as if the police and the community agree on overall improvement of the
SAPS, there is no congruence on what the community expects and the perceptions of police
officials regarding service delivering. Consequently the results show that the preferred
expectations of the community were very skewly distributed, suggesting that their
expectations are unrealistic.
No significant differences were found between the three language communities regarding
their present view of the police. However, differences were found between Afrikaans- and
Tswana-speaking people regarding their expectations of crime prevention and assistance. Job
satisfaction, police stress, burnout and engagement were significantly related.
Recommendations for future research were made.